South Korea’s Voters Speak

South Korea’s ruling New Frontier Party barely held its own in local elections throughout the country last week. In 17 closely watched contests for nine provincial governors and mayors in eight major cities, South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s conservatives won eight posts, while the opposition, left-of-center New Politics Alliance for Democracy won nine. A prominent ruling party candidate for mayor of Seoul, an important position, lost to the popular liberal incumbent, Park Won-soon. Overall, the results showed a roughly equal number of victories for both parties in their traditional local and regional strongholds.

Political analysts believe that widespread popular discontent following April’s ferry disaster helped account for the ruling party’s so-so showing. And while the opposition did not do enough to exploit this unhappiness, the results nevertheless sent a strong warning to politicians across the spectrum that the government must do far more to tighten regulatory oversight and that values other than growth at any price will henceforth weigh heavily in voters’ minds.

After the election, Ms. Park said she would accelerate her three-year plan for economic innovation, including reforms in the public sector, to give the South Korean economy another boost. During the past couple of decades, South Korea has taken enormous economic strides. Moody’s, the credit rating agency, expects South Korea to join the ranks of the advanced economies by 2018. But there are downsides to this growth that demand attention.

South Korean men, for instance, work until the average age of 71.1 years, the second longest among O.E.C.D. countries. While the normal retirement age is 60, men work an extra 11 years because the social security system is woefully inadequate. A government survey found that the average income of those over 60 is $1,600 a month, and only 15 percent of this comes from social security. In addition, 42 percent of those over 60 saw themselves as poor. Women work until the average age of 69.8 years.

There are, in short, distortions and flaws in the South Korean economic miracle. The elderly members of South Korea’s rapidly aging society are especially in need of a more comfortable economic safety net and are deserving of more empathy from the government.